Today's baked good, Maple Walnut Cake, takes a slightly different look at sticky toffee pudding by adding an intense maple flavor, which makes up for a lack of the rich toffee sauce that would normally accompany that recipe.

Inside this tall golden cake is an extremely moist crumb - this comes from sweet pitted dates that have been softened in boiling water and then puréed until smooth. Since we are set in the moisture department, the flavor of the cake received a rich depth from infusing toasted walnuts into the mixture of all-purpose and slightly nutty whole wheat pastry flour by giving them a thorough whirl in the food processor. Robust maple flavor is bursting out of each piece as we used a dark amber (grade B) pure maple syrup - if you can only find light, go ahead and use it, but searching for the darkest will give the best flavor. Replacing the toffee sauce is a sticky, sweet and explicitly maple glaze that slowly soaks in. To tie the flavors together and add some crunch, toasted chopped walnuts are all this cake needs as a garnish. It's not often that both Jeff and I look at each other after our first bite and say "wow!"